I was fortunate enough to be a tech mentor for the first batch of NYCGenTech.

It's a program by the City to create the next generation of technologists and tech entrepreneurs. To be honest, my involvement with the program actually inspired the character of Pocholo in "An NYCDataWell story."

I can't help but imagine what a future NYCGenTech batch would do with an NYCDataWell, or something like it. Scratch that, what all NYC students can do by using the NYCDataWell to do all kinds of experiments, not just the fortunate batch of 30+ students that joined the pilot program.

Once a City Positioning System is deployed, one very interesting usecase that should be on the shortlist is the Quantified Commute.

Through the NYCDataWell Launcher App, a user can register Work and Home locations as well as the timings of the typical workweek schedule.

With enough users, the MTA can really do super-efficient allocation of transportation resources. And with the City Navigation System enabled and powered by the CPS, the City can even do proactive notification and re-routing as illustrated in the NYCDataWell Story when the Dad was automatically notified of a changed bike route when the City's emergency services had to close down a section of Broadway.

The City can even track multi-modal commute patterns based on heuristics (3mph - walking rate; connection times between transfers, may it be subway-to-subway or bus-to-subway; recognize when the commuter is in a car, taxi or biking, etc. etc)

This usecase alone, in our opinion, justifies the installation of a City Positioning System and makes a compelling case for something similar to the DataWell.

So how can NYCDataWell, yet another piece of modern technology dependent on electricity, help out in something like Sandy?

First of all, if you read "An NYCDataWell Story", you can see that the DataWell we envisioned will have backup power and can be hooked up to a power source in a number of ways (e.g. firetruck, police car, generator hooked up by the local Community Board, etc.)

With that addressed, let's imagine now an alternative version of the Sandy evacuation.

When Mayor Bloomberg called for the mandatory evacuation of Zone A, wouldn't it have helped if DWs connected to a display can show that information in a hyperlocal context?

In our view, CUSP is going to be to New York City, what Stanford was to Silicon Valley - becoming the engine for Urban Informatics Innovation as it defines the "Science of Cities."

And its roster of partners is very impressive - big household names that can bring to bear tremendous resources, vastly accelerating this process.

We feel that part of the Gov 2.0 proposition is to get people away from thinking of "Government as a Vending Machine". And by actively engaging specialized communities like Developers, Civic Hackers, Students and Researchers using the DataWell as a source of information but also a target of Innovation.

But what about "regular citizens?" They too can play a part, just by using the NYCDataWell Launcher app, regular citizens can also contribute. How?

When we imagined the Launcher app, we also thought that the City, and CUSP in particular can use it as a "Pocket Lab." After all, current mobile devices are bristling with sensors, and perhaps, the local Maker community (we're looking at you ITP and AdaFruit) can even create a whole slew of external instrumentation packages that citizens can deploy not only on their current smartphones, but also on their old ones.

The Launcher App will have the ability to run these CUSP experiments in the background.

Imagine CUSP publishing research packages that citizens can sign up for:

ambient noise measurement

walking pace for each neighborhood

hyperlocalized commute times, that they can use to fine-tune public transportation resource allocation

and with a weather package, maybe old smartphones can be deployed as micro-weather stations indoors and outdoors

the possibilities are just limitless!

And why would citizens sign up for these experiments? They can then see the data, and how they compare with the population. It will even have the side benefit of "behaviorally nudging" them to modify their behavior for the better.

Public Service Announcements. With the current payphone contract, 3% of advertising space is saved for the City to share information with the citizenry.

With the NYCDataWell, why not rotate PSAs more? And why not personalize it?Last week, I was riding the subway and saw a PSA poster saying that a 20 oz soda will require a typical adult to walk from Times Square to Yankee stadium to burn off the calories.

With a Personalized Service Notification, maybe my current profile (age, gender, typical commute route) can be used to make the calorie calculation more relevant.

I couldn't find a digital copy of the poster, but here's a YouTube ad from the same "Pouring on the Pounds" campaign.

There are 59 Community Boards across NYC. 12 in Manhattan, 18 in Brooklyn, 12 in the Bronx, 14 in Queens and 3 in Staten Island.

Community Boards are the most accessible component of NYC city government and are the main advocate of their community's residents. Why not arm these volunteers with hyperlocalized actionable information to make them more effective advocates?

And not just advocates. With proper training, Community Board members can better harness local volunteer resources to become effective partners of the City.